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Immigration Bill: How Do We Make the Bad, Good?

To reach this compromise, every stake holder including Republicans, conservative media, Latino community advocates, DREAMers, business, labor unions, and farm workers had to give on a lot.

Still, the process between introducing a bill and its passage is more fraught with failure than a contestant angling to become the next American Idol.

This is why the immigrant community must step up even more and prove that through hard work and sacrifice, they earned the right to not just be here lawfully, but citizenship itself. This shouldn't be that hard. A poll released this week trumpeted that if given the opportunity, 87% of undocumented immigrants surveyed say they would apply to become a citizen. This makes sense given their deep family ties with this poll showing that 85% have a U.S. citizen family member.

Unfortunately, another survey tells a different story. Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become citizens have yet to apply, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. This doesn't square with the rhetoric and the fight to include a "pathway to citizenship."

And a fight it was. The Hispanic advocacy community didn’t budge on this, despite conservative Republicans screaming amnesty. Who blinked? Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is staking his political career on this bill’s passage. Although the "kingmaker", he is also the most exposed, running the real risk of not succeeding in delivering his party’s crucial votes.